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Networked Blogs
Feb
8
Stringers LA Show Hyper Local At Work
Filed Under media
I was watching TruTV’s Stringers LA — the show about news stringers who drive around Los Angeles shooting video for local television stations that don’t have enough reporters to cover every car chase, crime scene and accident that might be of interest to television news viewers.
While I was watching, a thought struck me that this type of video coverage could work almost anywhere. While most areas won’t have the car chases and other police activity that the stringers in Los Angeles and Chicago routinely cover, there are plenty of local news stories that could be taped, edited into short packages and uploaded to websites.
Almost everyone has a video camera in his or her cell phone and most computers come with video software already installed, so there’s already an army of people out there equipped who might not even realize. While the video quality isn’t going to be the same as someone using a $35,000 HD video camera, almost everything on YouTube looks the same, so a lower resolution and quality won’t make that much of a difference.
Major cable news outlets are already soliciting viewers’ video and reports — CNN iReport is one. And, Northwest Indiana and Chicago’s Vocalo does the same for audio.
Maybe the future is a fusion of video and text focusing on hyper local issues that aren’t routinely covered in the major media outlets. Since local newspapers can’t beat radio and the internet for breaking national stories, maybe it’s time to focus on an area where they can dominate — the hyper local news that nobody else is going to cover. Once eyes are on the screen — the days of printed newspapers are limited because of the cost of paper — ad revenue will increase.
